Unless cooler heads prevail, Congress will soon receive the first civilian nuclear cooperation agreement of the Obama administration ¡ª an agreement hastily drafted and signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the waning days of the Bush administration. Congress and the executive branch need to make sure this deal doesn¡¯t end up spreading the very nuclear-weapons capabilities it¡¯s supposed to curb.

On that point, there¡¯s cause for concern.

The State Department says it will use the deal not just to promote nuclear trade with the UAE, but as a template for U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements with Algeria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia ¡ª states that, unlike the UAE, have previously harbored nuclear-weapons ambitions.  The department insists the deal¡¯s provisions will keep the UAE (and, by implication, any other state that signs a deal based on the UAE text) from making nuclear fuel ¡ª a step that could bring a state within days or weeks of building nuclear bombs. It also says that the agreement requires the UAE to accept the most intrusive level of nuclear inspections.

  

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